Seventh Grade Alphas
by Just Another Fanatic
Summary: This is the story of the Beauty Brigade, the Femme Fatales, and the Betties, three cliques all competing for Massie's approval, boys, and the title of top clique at BOCD. Based off an RP by the same name. Read for love, lies, plots, schemes, and utter chaos. Who will win? Who will fail? And which clique will win the coveted key?
1. Chapter 1: Marie Goldstein, Alpha

**So, this is a rewriting of the RP Seventh Grade Alphas. I'm adding to the story, making it more fluid, extending scenes, etc. As well, I'll be writing on past where the RP ended up dying. Hope you like and review!**

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Chapter One: Marie Goldstein, Alpha

Oralee "Marie" Goldstein was born to be an Alpha. Her father, Big Bill Goldstein was an Alpha in the business world. Her mother, Deborah Goldstein nee Reese, was an Alpha among social climbers and socialites. Even her cousin, Parker, was an Alpha in the pool from the first time he floated in a bath.

At age three, Marie chose her domain. Ballet. She donned a pair of slippers and a tutu that was nearly as heavy as she was, and strutted into her ballet class, clutching the dangling keychain on her mother's monstrous purse with all her might, afraid that her mother would be disappointed if she wasn't the best in the class.

By age five, Marie was the number one in her class, and transferred to the near-by Body Alive Dance Studio, which was where she met the first girl that would go to her school. Amy Sherwood. Never, in Marie's life, had she met someone so close to her age that was just as good, if not better, at ballet as she was.

So Marie practiced. And practiced. And practiced. She wore her old slippers to bed, hoping that it would help her get better. She leaped around the house, rather than walked, because she had to spend every moment practicing.

And the last day of summer class, their dance instructor complemented Marie more than Amy for the first time. Marie smiled and her blue-flecked brown eyes slid to Amy, and from that moment on, Marie knew that Amy would suffer her wrath as long as Amy was still in Westchester.

Marie never imagined that Amy would have friends. On that first day of school Marie met for the first time Alice Sherwood and Michelle Van Allen. The three of them were connected at the hip. They shared crayons during coloring time. They sat all together during singing class. They even traded desserts from their lunches. They even spoke to boys at times; clearly they all had cooties.

It was something that Marie had never had. So, she spilled her juice on Amy's nice white skirt. Tested pens on Amy's art. Put sand in Amy's shoes. She managed to make all of it seem like an accident and never got in trouble, and Amy teared up each time. But with those friends on either side of her, Amy would not break and Marie felt lonely.

One day while a five-year-old Marie was plotting her next plan against Amy (gum on Amy's seat), a dark-haired girl sat next to her. She'd seen her, sometimes playing with an equally dark-haired boy during recess. Clearly, this girl had cooties as well.

"You should drop it in her hair."

Marie turned to this girl. "What do you mean?"

"The gum. If you want to make her cry, you should get your gum in her hair."

Marie nodded. Maybe this Cootie Girl had some potential. So, not long later, Amy was bawling as Michelle and Alice refused to touch the gum in Amy's hair while the teacher was using latex gloves.

It turned out Cootie Girl was named Blair Kingston. And Blair's mother was a giant. Marie's neck hurt for two whole days after spending half an hour looking up at Blair's mother, because she wasn't supposed to stare at people's knees. It didn't help that, even at her age of five (and a half, thank you very much), Marie barely stood at the height of a four-year-old.

A few weeks later, Marie and Blair were switching desserts, as Marie insisted, even though she had been packed the chocolate muffin and Blair had been given a small bag of grapes and strawberries, and Marie really wanted that chocolate muffin, but obviously friends switched desserts. It was on this day that a blonde girl approached the two, her hair tied off with a pink ribbon.

"Hello," the girl said politely. "My name is Tressa Giorgianni. May I please sit with you?"

Marie looked at this girl. She was standing straight and smiled and was polite.

"No."

"But I said please," this Tressa girl said. "And I asked nicely." She took a seat anyway.

"She said no," Blair said, her hands going to her hips.

"Everyone knows that if someone asks nicely and says please the polite thing to do is to say yes," Tressa said.

"Then I'm not polite," Marie said. She looked at Blair, and almost as if Blair understood, Blair looked at Tressa and asked, "What does polite mean?"

"Polite means not rude," Tressa said, proud that she knew the answer.

"And what does rude mean?" Blair asked after a few seconds.

This time Tressa's green eyes looked to the side, avoiding eye contact. She didn't supply an answer. After a moment, she insisted, "I am sitting here, and that is that."

Marie, Tressa, and Blair became inseparable after that. Marie liked Tressa because Tressa was an only child like she was. And she liked Blair because Blair had spunk. However, over the years, Marie and Tressa grew a little closer because sometimes Blair preferred spending time with her brother over Marie.

In third grade, they met Keelin O'Neil. Marie immediately didn't like the girl because she was the tallest girl in the grade at the time. She was even taller than most of the boys. But Tressa and Blair both immediately liked her, so Marie was forced to put up with her. And then Marie learned the best thing about Keelin... her mother was a fashion designer.

"I want your mother to design me a dress," Marie said to Keelin one day.

Keelin cocked her head, curly black hair spilling out of a sloppy pony-tail. "What do you mean?" Keelin asked.

"Blair said your mother designs clothing," Marie said. "So, I want a dress."

"But my mother is a singer," Keelin said. She smiled, small dimples appearing on her pale, freckled face.

Marie rolled her eyes. "Then what were you doing when Blair saw you at the fashion shoot her father shot over the weekend?"

Keelin stared at Marie for a few moments with blankness in her light blue eyes. "Oh, my step-mother is a designer. Bambi Bixby!"

"I never heard of her," Marie stated. She then turned her head slightly. "Step-mother?" She had never met someone with an evil step-mother like Cinderella had, but Keelin seemed to be in fine shape despite her unfortunate luck.

The only thing that kept Marie from telling Keelin that she couldn't spend time with them was the way Blair and Tressa fawned over the girl. Blair and Keelin both had famous mothers, and apparently Keelin's father was the lawyer for Tressa's parents.

In the fifth grade, Marie decided to immortalize the small group with a name. She tried several names. But nothing seemed to stick. It was Tressa that suggested Femme Fatales, and Marie said she'd give it a test period... what she really meant was that she had to look up what it meant. Once she knew what it meant, she immediately liked it, but pretended that it was only okay for about a week before officially accepting the title.

About a week or so after she, Tressa, Blair, and Keelin had become the Femme Fatales, Michelle, Alice, Amy, and their newest friend Suzy adopted a name as well, the Beauty Brigade. After that, the race was officially on. Each group tried to top the other. Each tried to be prettier, more fashionable, and tried to be the top clique of OCD. However, each clique seemed to be missing something important.

The answer came on the first day of the sixth grade. A new set of twins had moved into the area, and unlike the Sherwood twins, these two fought like mad. Marie watched for a few days as Ally tormented her sister, threw paper balls at her, stole her sister's dessert, and didn't waste a moment after the Beauty Brigade adopted Jade before Marie invited Ally over. Her original intention was to kick Keelin out, but apparently Keelin was the one that really got Ally to agree to hang with the Femme Fatales. Within a few weeks, she was a girl with a definite clique.

For most girls her age, the alarm clock went off around six-thirty or seven, but by that time of the day, Marie had been up for hours. Marie had spent the whole summer waking at four-thirty to make it to a five-thirty ballet practice in the city. She had been accepted into a summer program by the New York Russian Ballet Company, and was the youngest as well. It was a highly prestigious 'internship' which involved dancing with the company during certain performances as well as hours of practice and training with some of the best dancers in the business.

And it was where Marie had met who she was sure was the love of her life. Dimitri Brezhnev. Sure, he was Russian and eight years older than her, but he was strong and had the best abs, booty, and face Marie had ever seen in person, and danced ballet better than most men. He, however, seemed to not see her in the same light, and no matter how much she practiced and danced, he still saw her as nothing but a young girl, and he treated her as such.

But, now, the summer was over, and Marie would have to practice on her own, in her basement studio, and twice a week at an eight o'clock BADS class. A class that she now shared with not one, but two Brigaders.

Now, however, she had to concentrate on school. This year was the year that everything changed. Westchester's finest boys would be joining up with the once simple OCD to be BOCD, after having started in separate schools in the fifth grade from the boys, and it was this year that Marie would prove to Massie Block that the Femme Fatales had what it took to be the top clique in the seventh grade and that as Alpha, she should inherit Massie's throne.

Once she arrived at the school, however, fifteen minutes before the first bell rang, she remembered why she hated its halls. It smelled so... mere millionaire-ish. Not like the gardenia scented halls of her family mansion, or the lilac of the family library and office. No, instead she detected last year's fashion, poor, and worst of all, short redheads. Granted, short was not relative to her because even with her five inch pumps, she was still half an inch shorter than Michelle. But she made her way to her locker, only having one close encounter with an LBR. She had just managed to open her locker as Jake Carlton crashed into the one next to hers. His skateboard rolled down the hall a bit as he fell on his butt. And every girl in the area stared at him with admiration except Marie, who stared down at him for a moment before rolling her eyes.

"I see you've perfected personal injury and stupidity over the summer," Marie said, turning back into her locker. There wasn't too much venom in her voice. The relationship between Jake and Marie had started part way through the fourth grade when she poured a carton of chocolate milk over his head on his first day of school in Westchester. It hadn't gotten much better since, despite the fact that Jake was an actor with a recurring part on the same television show his mother starred in. Nearly every girl at the school was in love with him, save a few.

"Ah, Marie, how I've missed your scathing comments," Jake said. He stood up, and though he was among the shortest of his friends, he and she were about the same height in her pumps. "Did you shrink?"

"Oh, get a new joke because that one was never funny," Marie said, stuffing her Prada bag into her locker and pulling out her Poppy wristlet. She didn't have any notebooks or pens, just an iPad. She wasn't really one for academics.

"Nice landing, though," Tressa said, arriving at the locker just on the other side of the one Jake had crashed into. He was bending down to grab his skateboard, as someone had rolled it back in his direction. Tressa turned her green eyes to Marie. "Please tell me something interesting. I've been back in town for forty-eight hours and nothing interesting has happened."

Tressa had just returned from what should have been a relaxing summer, spending a month at her Hamptons home and another month in Italy, but it seemed the stress of school was already getting to her, and classes hadn't even started yet. Marie could tell that Tressa's eyes were scanning the halls for her biggest competition for valedictorian, Dean Patrick. And, while Marie only carried a wristlet and an iPad, Tressa traded her bag for a Kindle, which Marie knew was loaded with all of Tressa's textbooks from the past four years.

"Interesting? Here?" Marie questioned. "As if."

Jake leaned back against the locker that Tressa was at, checking that her hair was falling just so. "It just so happens I have some interesting gossip," he said. He used the mirror she had hanging in her locker to fiddle with his hair a bit. "But it'll cost you."

"Don't bother," Marie said. "It's obviously something stupid about his new skateboard or how he broke his arm when he got it."

"I didn't break my arm," Jake said turning his green eyes only briefly to Marie before turning back to Tressa. "And, it actually might have to do with you."

Ignoring Marie's comment, Tressa's eyes lit up. "Tell me," she demanded as she closed her locker.

Jake just smiled for a moment.

"Just tell us," Marie said. "Like it might be relatively interesting."

"It's very interesting," Jake said. "But, like I said, it'll cost you."

Tressa considered it for a moment, trying to figure out what Jake knew. "Okay, what do you want?"

"What do you have to offer?" Jake asked flashing his celebrity smile. It wasn't quite yet at movie star, but then again, he wasn't a movie star, just a recurring character on a half-hour comedy.

"Whatever your little heart desires!" Tressa said before laughing. "No more games, Jake. Continue."

"How about a kiss?" Jake asked.

"Do nothing more than a kiss on the cheek," Marie said, her eyes sharp. She knew that Tressa was really excited to get this news, and now even her interest was piqued.

"Oh, that's all?" Tressa asked giggling as she leaned in to kiss his cheek.

Jake waited until Tressa was too close to react, quickly turning his face and pressing his lips to hers. It took Tressa a few moments to figure out what was going on. By the time she could react, the kiss was already over. "What was that?" she asked.

"That was a kiss," Jake said. He didn't use the obvious 'duh' tone, but rather it was more of a reminder.

"Didn't you say you had some 411?" Marie questioned after a second.

Jake smirked and nodded. "I did," he said. However, he didn't release his information.

"Well, you got your kiss," Tressa said. "I want my gossip."

Jake laughed a bit. "First kiss this year was between Tressa and Jake," he said before walking down the hall, giving them a wave.

Marie was slightly impressed. "You do realize he had nothing until you kissed him," she said to Tressa. "He totally got you."

"Well, at least it was a pretty good kiss," Tressa said with a shrug as she leaned against the locker and thought about it. She turned to Marie. "What's your first class?"

"Who cares," Marie said. "Was that your first lip-kiss? Because, if it was, it sucked."

"Of course not," Tressa said, offended. "I've been kissed before. But I hope no one thinks we're together." Marie knew that Tressa was lying about the kiss not being her first.

"There would be so many broken hearts," Marie said, waving it off. "Just because he has guest starred on a crappy comedy doesn't make him a star. He's not even all that good-looking."

"He's not bad looking, a boy-toy," Tressa decided. She ran a hand though her hair, which Marie knew that Tressa was about to change the topic. "I think I'm going to throw a back-to-school party on Friday to lighten up the mood. Any thoughts?"

"People who throw the first party are just looking for attention," Marie said, shaking her head, which threw her curls about a bit. They settled back to exactly how Marie liked them. "You don't want to be the first to throw a party. You want to be the first on the guest list."

"My thoughts exactly," Blair's voice sounded behind Marie. She threw an arm over Marie's shoulder. "Now, what's this chatter I hear about Tressa and Jake?"

"It's spread already!" Tressa gasped, wondering how to approach Damage Control.

Blair, however, just laughed. "No, no one's talking," she said. "I spotted it down the hall when I was at my locker. But, seriously, what was that?"

"Oh, Jake decided he'd try to up his social status by smacking one on Tressa," Marie said.

"Hey, well, it could be worse," Blair said with a shrug. "He's almost a HART."

"Almost one doesn't make him one," Marie said. "He's still an LBR on my list."

"Who isn't one on your list?" Blair asked. "Just out of curiosity?"

Marie glanced at Blair for a moment. "If you've got someone in mind, I'm sure that your judgment is good enough to separate the total losers from the school's best."

"I'm not looking," Blair defended, her sapphire blue eyes widening. "But I'm open to the potential of finding one."

"Well, of course you are," Tressa said. "Now that Chandler is off to boarding school in England and can't beat up anyone who flirts with you." Marie noticed an almost undetectable sigh from Tressa, knowing that Tressa and Chandler had been on the verge of becoming an item before he decided to pursue soccer at a school in England. Chandler should have been Tressa's first lip-kiss, but when a boy picks soccer over a girl and his family…

"So you know how much I hate Miami?" Ally's voice broke through the hall. The three Femme Fatales turned to see the girl walking through the throngs of students. "Out of my way, LBR." Sometimes Ally didn't have the same social charisma as some of the other FFs.

"Just because you were forced to spend time with your sisters and parents isn't a reason to hate a town," Tressa said with a small sigh.

"No, the fact that Will Smith wrote a crappy song is a reason to hate it," Marie said.

"I sort of like that song," Tressa said, frowning just a bit.

"It's not ballet or in the top forty currently," Blair reminded Tressa. Only songs that fell into either of those two categories registered as good songs to Marie.

"Now, why do I feel like we're missing someone?" Ally asked, scanning the group over quickly with her dark brown eyes.

"Goodness, I have no idea why you would think that," Marie said. "Maybe that Miami heat scrambled your brain."

"Where's Keelin?" Ally asked after another second.

"Oh, yes, that one," Marie said with a deep sigh. "I suppose we ought to seek her out before she embarrasses us."

"Marie, she's our friend," Tressa said. "Why must you always be so mean and critical about her?"

"She really does bring it on herself," Marie said. "I mean, did she even pass last year?"

"She did," Ally said. "Barely, but she did."


	2. Chapter 2: Michelle Van Allen

**So, this chapter is quite a bit shorter than the last, as the last one had back story and this one doesn't really as the last one built the structure of Michelle's Clique, just without how they all met. Anyway, I still hope you enjoy and leave comments.**

**And, remember, this story is from an RP, so there are a lot of characters, but I'll try not to over-whelm you with them and give enough into each so that you can separate them. As well, this isn't fully canon.**

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Chapter Two: Michelle Van Allen, Alpha

On the front lawn, one girl was reveling in the strength and power that the PC had at BOCD as the clique of five walked into the school. Michelle Van Allen was not going to let a little bump of being born one year too late to be Massie Block's co-alpha get in her way of being Massie's favorite seventh-grade alpha. She knew that, when the year ended, Massie would gladly hand over the reins of the school to Michelle, and she and her Beauty Brigade would have their year to reign supreme. Of course, Michelle knew that there was no one who could compete for the top spot that was of any concern, not even Marie Goldstein. So, Michelle walked into the school, head held as high as the relatively short girl could hold it, her four-inch heels giving her a little bit of extra, needed, height.

Alice and Amy Sherwood caught up with the redhead at the doors, Starbucks in hand. Michelle recognized the sound of Alice's Yves Saint Laurent pumps as she took the stairs and held out a hand, which Amy immediately deposited a spare latte into. Flanked by two of her best friends, Michelle felt invincible.

"Hey girls," Michelle said before taking a sip of her latte. It was just the temperature she liked it. The Beauty Brigade was still sharp on their morning routines after a whole summer apart. "What's the new news?"

"Nothing really," Amy said. "I mean, we just got back from England a week ago."

Alice added, with heavy sarcasm, "Oh, what fun."

"But, what's new with you?" Amy asked politely.

"Psh." Michelle rolled her indigo eyes. "As if I did anything of interest this summer. Once again, my uncle and his annoying daughters were over."

"Wouldn't those be your cousins?" Amy asked.

Michelle ignored the question. "I was basically held hostage to entertain them. It's like, they reap the benefits every summer of my dad's success. They only went home yesterday, thank gawd."

"Well, why don't you just come to England with us next year," Amy insisted.

"We were dying of boredom!" Alice said with a laugh.

"Oh, but then I'd miss the family mass suicide next summer," Michelle said sarcastically. "Oh, wait, that was just my fantasy of how good it could be."

"Well, that sounds much more interesting that 'tea with Her Majesty'," Alice said. She rolled her blue-grey eyes. "Seriously? I've known her since I was born. I don't need to refer to my great aunt as 'Her Majesty'."

It was a well know fact that the Sherwoods were related to the English royal line. Michelle was sure that their mother was a duchess or a baroness or something like that. They were too far away to ever hope to get the crown (after all, they had three older siblings themselves) but they still spent most of their summers to be trained like royalty. They had only ever moved to America for political purposes, as far as Michelle could tell, and the twins spent every summer and most of their winter breaks in England. At the very least, it kept up their accents, which were constantly fading toward American styles of speech.

Amy mumbled some sort of agreement, but was peering over the shoulder of a short eighth grader, fluffing her hair in the girl's locker mirror. It was an obvious sign that she had spotted Ringo Blake, who she had had the biggest crush on since she first met him at Michelle's house when she was six.

"Just call her Queeny," Michelle said, ignoring the fact that she knew Ringo would be near her in just a few moments. "What is she going to do? She'll just laugh it off as you are related to her. And at least you were in one of the fashion capitals of the world. I wasn't even allowed to wear Burberry while those cretins were at my house. And I had to lock my closet. So I was stuck among LBR family and couldn't even look good among them."

"What's new Mischief?" a voice said behind Michelle. Ringo was the seventh grade alpha male and self-proclaimed annoyer of Michelle. He was the first person to refer to the clique as the 'Brat Brigade,' which had caught on quickly among the Femme Fatales. Ringo and Michelle had known one another since they were three, as their mothers had become best friends through a book club and shopping. "No cousins this time?"

"And this guy actually spotted them," Michelle said, not even looking at Ringo.

"Oh, poor you," Alice said with a laugh, trying to picture the whole thing.

Amy chuckled as well, tossing a bit of her hair, trying to attract Ringo's attention. "That sounds just terrible." Her accent was a little more pronounced than it was naturally.

"I know, it's terrible that some poor family has to suffer Mischief every summer," Ringo said dramatically.

"Oh, shut your trap," Michelle snapped at him.

"Would you two stop bickering?" Alice asked. "You sound like an old married couple." She noticed her sister's eyes widen at the idea of Michelle and Ringo being in a relationship.

"Oh, no we do nawt!" Michelle snapped. Ringo just chuckled, still smiling. There were very few things that could make that smile disappear.

Michelle spun around and began in the opposite direction, Amy and Alice following, though Amy a little more slowly, her eyes lingering on Ringo an extra few seconds.

Michelle's life was different from Marie's. While Marie was spoiled rotten because her parents didn't exactly make time for her, but forced her to make time for them, Michelle usually got along great with her parents, except when it came to her cousins. Her mother came from a well off family, went to business school, and then opened up an accessories boutique in town that carried couture items that couldn't be found in other stores. Her father was born and raised middle-class, but after his time in school, rose the ranks in a medium-sized company and became the youngest CFO, shortly after marrying. Ceri and Willem adored their daughter, bent to most of her wishes, but still maintained a good relationship. Ceri knew the numbers and parents of all of Michelle's friends while Willem actually kept track of her shoe size, favorite color (red) and that her favorite brand was Burberry.

There was something about Burberry that just got Michelle excited. To her, it was sophisticated and fashionable and more posh than other brands, while not being too dressed up. She could wear it to school, or just out on the town.

"Anyone want to walk with me to English class?" Amy asked, her British accent still coming through a little bit more than usual as they were still within Ringo's hearing range. "Room 308."

"I'm in room 307 for math," Suzy said, coming up behind the Beauty Brigade and throwing an arm around the shoulders of the twins. She sighed dramatically. "Another year is beginning. Let's just die now."

"You should have a brighter outlook, Suzy," Amy said. "You sound suicidal."

"Oh," Alice said with a smile. "You can join the Van Allen mass suicide next summer."

Michelle and Amy laughed while Suzy just looked confused. "Whatev," she said, rolling her hazel eyes. "I do not sound suicidal. I'm just a realist is all. The truth is that school is a miserable nine months."

"Well, at least you know how your mother felt while she was pregnant with you," Alice said with a shrug.

"This is where we leave you two," Michelle said and waved as Suzy and Amy turned one way down the hall while Alice and Michelle went the other.

"Where are you headed, BTW?" Alice asked as the two girls continued down the hall.

"Science," Michelle said with a sigh. She was not a fan of the class.

"Oh, me too," Alice said brightly. "Hopefully we can be lab partners!"

"Def," Michelle said. However, upon arriving at the science lab, they were met with a seating chart. Michelle quickly spotted M E Van Allen next to O M Goldstein. "You've got to be kidding me, right?"

"Oh, bollocks," Alice said, covering her eyes after seeing Michelle's partner. "Now I'm scared to look. What does it say next to my name? Oh, don't tell me if it's bad." She gasped. "Is it an LBR? Or an EW? Or even worse, a Femme Fatale?"

"It says B Holiday," Michelle said. She furrowed her brow a bit. "Who is that?"

"I don't know," Alice said, moving her hands from her eyes. "Maybe it's a new girl? Oh, I hope she's smart."

"Or a new boy," Michelle said, reminding Alice that they were indeed in a co-ed school for the mean time.

"In which case I hope he's cute," Alice said.

A moment later, a girl with flat brown hair walked past them. She wore jeans, a graphic tee, and dirty sneakers. And within a few moments, she had sat down at the table Alice would be working from.

"Well, I'm guessing smart," Michelle said. "She obviously belongs at ADD, which means she must be here on scholarship."

"Definitely," Alice nodded in agreement. She smiled. "Hey, but if I have a smart lab partner, that means I can do less work and still reap the benefits of good grades."

Michelle quirked her mouth in annoyance. "Good for you. With the midget as my lab partner, I'm going to have to do all the work. She's not very smart, it's so obvious that she buys her grades."

"Obv," Alice agreed. She took a deep breath. "I might as well meet her, as I'm going to be sitting next to her. And she will probably be in charge of my grades in this class."

Michelle nodded and walked to her own seat. She pulled a notebook from her satchel along with a red pen. With perfect precision, she wrote 'Science' across the top of the notebook, and then opened it to the first page, writing the day's date. Michelle may not have been the number one student in the school, but she was definitely up there. Out of the Brigaders, she and Jade were the two smartest, though they had different goals. Michelle had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew that she'd be going to Penn State for college, just like her father. Jade was aiming for the Ivy League.

She pulled her phone from her purse as there were still thirty seconds before class and texted Jade. **Where R U?**

She then stuffed her phone back into her purse just as the teacher walked in.

"Okay, everyone, sit down," their teacher, a squat man with a really bad comb-over said. "I see we're still missing a few people. First day jitters."

A moment later, Marie walked in with Blair in tow. They smiled, some quiet words were exchanged, and then they giggled, splitting up. Looking at his seating chart, Mr. Rolland noted who they were. "Miss Kingston," he said, looking at Blair as she was sitting next to a boy. "And Miss…"

Michelle saw Marie glance at her with her light brown eyes for a second. "Van Allen."

"She's actually Goldstein," Michelle said quickly before Marie could get her in trouble and mark up her perfect record. "I'm Michelle Van Allen."

"Late and lying," Mr. Rolland said. "I see this is going to be a very fun year indeed."

The rest of the period was spent with Michelle and Marie sending glares at one another. Michelle had taken notes when needed, as Mr. Rolland was one to jump straight into teaching the first day of school, while Michelle noticed that Marie spent the whole time on her iPad looking at a few fashion websites, pulling up an e-mail every time Mr. Rolland happened by them so it looked like Marie was taking notes. At one of the extended times that Marie had to keep the e-mail up, she noticed it was about ballet, which didn't surprise Michelle in the slightest. After all, everyone knew that Marie was a fab ballerina, considering she was the number one in her class at BADS. People even suspected that she'd be better than Skye Hamilton, but the two had never been in the same class, probably purposely by Skye's mother so that Skye would never be shown up.

"So, class, please finish answering the packet with your lab partner for tomorrow," Mr. Rolland said with just a minute left of class. "You may download the text materials as an e-book with the code provided at the top of your syllabus, or pick up an actual book here." He held up the heavy book and Michelle was glad that she owned a Nook. "I suggest you exchange phone numbers or e-mail addresses with your lab partner, as you will be working together numerous times through the quarter."

Michelle frowned. Somewhere in the depths of her phone she had Marie's number. "Look," Michelle said. "I can tell you obviously don't care about your grades, but I actually have a record to maintain."

"So you'll do all partner projects on your own," Marie said. "Good, we're in agreement then." She stood up, grabbed her iPad, and headed out the door as the bell rang. Michelle was barely able to keep her mouth closed.

"That bad?" Alice asked.

"She is so lucky that I'll be doing half her work," Michelle said, shoving her notebook back into her bag. She looked up to see that Alice's lab partner was actually slipping an iPad mini into her ratty bag. "So, how's scholarship?"

"Um… apparently not so," Alice said. She looked at the flat-haired girl. "She's from San Francisco, and not on scholarship at all. She just… well… dresses like that."

"Why?" Michelle asked. Alice shrugged. "Is she at least nice?"

"Oh, she's a doll," Alice said. "Couldn't ask for a nicer partner." She smiled. "Also, she apparently likes sports, so I'm gonna try to convince her to join the Sirens. Being on the team with Jade's satanic sister is annoying, and because she's just the teeniest bit better than me, the rest of the team worships the earth she dribbles on."

"Do you know if she's any good?" Michelle asked.

"Better than you," Alice said, smirking. It was a very well known fact that Michelle was not athletic. Alice played soccer, Jade and Amy danced, and Suzy came from a sports driven family and had to join a sport to keep her partial scholarship. But, Michelle felt that, as long as she passed PE, there was no reason to actually be athletic. She held a healthy diet, and was active enough, walking her bunnies and cruising the mall on a regular basis. But hand-eye coordination was not one of her traits.

"I still think you should work on convincing Suzy," Michelle said. As they walked out of the room. "I mean, you could be really mean and suggest it of her father. He'd love that."

"Yeah, but Suzy would hate me," Alice said.

Michelle nodded. "Well, convince the guys into a pick-up game of it, and maybe she'll start to like the sport."

Alice laughed. "So true," she said. "Maybe I could even convince Amy onto a field if the boys were playing."


End file.
